Passage West

by Rishi Reddi

  One evening, a week after he had joined the army, his aunt came to find him there.

  “Your uncle says you should come and join us at the table to eat,” she said.

  He followed her and sat with them, even though he had already eaten. The others were unusually animated, their faces flushed and smiling. Karak was there, although Rosa was not. Amarjeet did not meet anyone’s eye.

  He sat and Kishen served him as if he had not had dinner.

  “Jeetu, your Karak Chacha will become a father soon,” Jivan said lightly. “What do you think?”

  So that was the reason. “Mubaraka,” Amarjeet said, meaning it, finally meeting Karak’s gaze.

  Karak reached across the table and put a plate in front of him. “Ladoo, which I made myself. I’m sure it is awful.” He glanced at Amarjeet with a strange, open smile, almost as if they were equals.

  Amarjeet smiled back. He bit into the sweet.

  “Bhabhi-ji, have one,” Karak said to Kishen. “Your blessings are needed.”

  “May you be blessed with a son who shines like the moon,” she said, taking another piece.

  Jivan placed two rotis on Amarjeet’s plate. “Eat, Jeetu,” he said. That was how Amarjeet knew the standoff between them had ended.

  THE FAMILY DID NOT TALK ABOUT THE WAR. It was not their war, even though Karak’s younger brother was fighting in Egypt for the British king. How could it belong to them, when the Americans had sided with the British, and the British were committed to subjugating the Indians, and were fooling their countrymen at home into joining the British ranks? Into risking their lives to win spoils they would never enjoy?

  In the Valley, there were melons and cantaloupes to plant. There was cotton to pick. Amarjeet helped his uncle purchase a second plow, a second cultivator. Meanwhile, Fredonia’s public spaces were filled with signs for Red Cross dances, posters demanding they buy war bonds, sign pledge cards, plant kitchen gardens, knit scarves and socks for the boys to take to Europe. What did that have to do with them? The family cared about the Hindu-German Conspiracy trial, about the Indian soldiers who were fighting alongside the British in France and Mesopotamia.

  Only Amarjeet volunteered to go into town whenever necessary. He would see former high school classmates at the war drive events. Sometimes they would greet him and sometimes they would not.

  When the draft numbers were drawn in Washington, D.C., Amarjeet rode into town, purchased a paper, and sat on the bench at the general store to read in the afternoon glare. His eye immediately caught the numbers—his own, and Harry’s too. He felt a wave of excitement.

  ON THE LAST EVENING before Amarjeet was deployed to Camp Lewis near Seattle, Amarjeet and Ram were clearing silt in the canal when Jivan approached, carrying three small crates with him. They were often used as seats.

  “I must see to some things in the house,” Ram said, stepping onto the bank.

  “Stay, Ram,” Jivan said. “I prefer if you hear this. Come and sit,” he said.

  It was clear to Amarjeet that Ram did not want to stay. He wondered why his uncle needed an audience. Perhaps to prove something, perhaps to redeem himself. He could tell how much Jivan had grown to like Ram.

  The three men looked out over the fields and were quiet. “Amarjeet,” Jivan finally said, “we will manage without you. Your father may be angry with me—he wanted you to continue with your education, and I have failed him—but we will manage here.”

  Amarjeet wanted to interrupt, to defend Jivan’s own actions to himself, but the words would not come.

  “I want to tell you some things,” Jivan said.

  His uncle’s eyes were hazel gray, and when he wore his green dastar, they took on the green hue. Looking at them, Amarjeet felt guilty again.

  “I served with our own people, even though it was within the British army,” Jivan said. “You will not have that advantage.”

  “Harry is coming too,” Amarjeet said, thinking about how much bolder Harry was than himself. How much more comfortable.

  “He is also different from the Anglos. He will have the same struggles. I am glad that he will be with you. Some men will treat you with respect and honesty. They exist even among the locals, see if you can recognize them. They will help you.”

  Amarjeet forced himself to nod. He did not have the patience needed for this conversation.

  “Do you remember Pandit RamChandra? When he came to visit?”

  “You did not like him,” Amarjeet said, growing irate. “How can we even speak of him anymore? He conspired with Germans. . . . They will all go to jail.”

  “But about one thing he was right. There is a global color line, all the world knows it. Look around us. In their speeches, in their ideas, the Americans pretend it doesn’t exist. Not only does it exist, Amarjeet, it is the basis of everything.

  “I feel uneasy now not because you are going into war, but because you will not be in a unit with your own people. You and Harry will be two foreigners in your squad. You will be treated as expendable. That is my great fear. I know you will fight bravely. You are a Sikh, after all. But your commander must value your life too. Otherwise he will always choose you for the duty that is the worst, or the most dangerous, or the one in which you will gain no recognition.”

  Amarjeet could not believe this was true. The army had told him there would be no race prejudice in its ranks. President Wilson had said that too. But out of regard for his uncle, he stayed quiet.

  “And there are cruel men, Jeetu. You will know them quickly. It is not easy to hide cruelty. Beware when you are alone with them and no one else is watching. Beware of them on the battlefield too. Their cruelty cannot be controlled there. It will extend to you and, without need, to the people that you are fighting.”

  Amarjeet had been tracing a line in the dirt with his shoe, but now he looked up. His uncle was staring at him. So was Ram.

  “I know you are angry with me for telling you this,” Jivan said. “You don’t want to believe that anything I am saying is true.”

  Amarjeet was surprised. He thought he had hidden his real feelings well. “I am not angry, Chacha-ji.”

  “I do not believe in war anymore, Amarjeet. I don’t know if I ever believed in it. But we are warriors. There is a reason that we wear the kirpan. We fight for justice. So be courageous. Act honorably. It is my duty to tell you not to fear death. To not hesitate to give up your life. So I am fulfilling that duty. When you come back you will be a changed man. Nothing will seem the same. But you are my brother’s son.” Jivan swallowed. “I want you to come back.”

  Amarjeet wanted to leave this conversation; that was all.

  Jivan’s eyes were wide and unblinking. Across the field, they could hear Kishen’s voice calling them to dinner. Amarjeet made a move to rise, then he sat down again, and, out of deference, waited for Jivan to go first.

  19

  September 1917

  RAM DID NOT KNOW IF JIVAN WAS RIGHT, BUT HE FELT THE SAME SADNESS. On the afternoon the soldiers were ordered to gather in town, he drove Amarjeet and the family in the wagon. Before leaving, Amarjeet had read to him the letter that had come from the army with his orders. Beside him lay the small bag packed with the things that he had been instructed to bring. Already, he was holding it close to him. As they passed over the canal, Karak began to sing an old tune that they all knew, that even Amarjeet knew as a child, working in the fields. They rode without comment. Karak’s voice was strong and floating, filling the empty desert air.

  Near town, a Tin Lizzie pulled up behind them. Its top was down. “Tomoya!” Jivan called out.

  The automobile rolled alongside the wagon. “You go to take Amarjeet,” Tomoya said. “We go to take Haruki.”

  From the back seat, Hatsu Moriyama smiled and waved at Kishen. Harry was sitting in the driver’s seat beside his father, and one of his sisters sat behind him. “Big day! Big day!” Tomoya said. To Ram, his cheerfulness seemed empty.

  In town, they parked the wagon and th
e vehicle behind the general store. Thousands of people had already lined the streets. Flags waved, children cried, the band was too loud. They had arrived just before the parade. Harry and Amarjeet dropped their bags off at the army office, then rejoined the families, but did not stand too close. They were already separate in some unarticulated way.

  The Fredonia High School band paraded before the Four Minute Men. The County Guard followed on horseback, then a long trail of Model T’s and Model A’s, with tooting horns and young women leaning out the windows, waving. Last came the winner of the year’s desert road race, a garland draped around its grille. The mayor appeared. There was a great uproar from the crowd, and no one could hear his speech. Then a second band began to play a rollicking and cheerful song, and young people flooded the street and began to dance, faces gleaming, arms waving, legs kicking. Even their parents laughed.

  Harry ran off as soon as the dancing started, but Amarjeet stayed with his uncle, taking in the scene with glistening eyes. He turned to Ram and said, “It is a good send-off, isn’t it, Ram-ji?” His face was flushed. Sweat dripped from his temples. Ram could not disagree with him.

  The evening brought fireworks, and afterward Harry came back grinning, his shirt damp and his hair mussed. Ram watched as he returned to his parents; Harry’s father placed his hand on his son’s shoulder. As the crowd thinned, the two young men set off to report to the Army Tent Grounds. They were slim-hipped and athletic and beautiful. In Punjab, where such things are allowed, they might have had arms around each other, in boyhood friendship and nothing more—two of them against the world. They turned and gave a last wave and Ram saw their faces, Japanese and Punjabi, in the midst of real Americans.

  That night Ram could not sleep. The moon was full and luminous and at last he rose from his cot and walked to the edge of the cotton field and looked across to the Eggenberger house. Karak was barely visible, sitting on the bench by the front porch. A shadow among shadows.

  Ram thought of joining him, but something prevented him. It was easier to remain two solitary figures together under a black sky. He thought of the expression on the Japanese boy’s face when he turned to his father. He thought of the father’s smile in return. A lifetime was conveyed in that glance. His own son was already three years old.

  As the morning cast its very first shade of gray, he lay down again on his cot and closed his eyes. He remembered how he had felt about Mr. Moriyama long ago, when he had not acknowledged the man’s favor of the Fresno scraper lent to level the cotton field. He felt a prick of remorse. Perhaps he had been wrong.

  Sleep came quickly. Jivan woke him moments later. “It is time to go,” he said.

  BY DAWN, THEY HAD ARRIVED AT THE TRAIN DEPOT. The band was again playing, quietly, but still the sounds slashed the morning air. The soldier boys were in uniform now, and they no longer seemed like people of the Valley. Their families milled around the platform, subdued and quiet. The Singhs found Amarjeet standing in line, wearing the standard-issue green uniform and a dastar of dark green. When he saw them, he smiled, but it was without the openness of the previous night. They were not allowed to approach. The band stopped playing and the crowd was grateful. The train was waiting. Far behind them, in the last car, the Negro soldiers had already entrained. The line of other boys moved slowly, solemnly in the open air, and Amarjeet turned again and again to his family, but did not wave. There was an expression on his face that Ram could not discern, then an Anglo boy clapped him jovially on the back and Amarjeet grinned. A moment later, he turned, raised his arm above his head, and disappeared into the train. Leela kept waving. The Singhs did not speak.

  The band began to play again, destroying the peace. The train sent up a wisp of smoke and inched forward. Several young women dabbed their eyes. Parents clutched at each other. A great hurrah went up from a group of youths clustered at the end of the platform.

  Ram could see Amarjeet’s face framed in the train window, Harry’s profile beside him. The youths cheered as the train passed, their faces turned up to the soldiers in admiration; in their eyes Ram saw their awe, anxiety, jealousy. He knew that, seeing them, Amarjeet would not be sorry that he had enlisted.

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER DINNER, they sat together on the porch behind the house. No one opened the whiskey bottle. Rosa joined them too, her legs propped up on a low stool. Leela sat near her, playing with a small wooden horse that Amarjeet had given her the previous day. She suddenly ran to Kishen and settled on her lap.

  “When Jeetu Veer-ji comes back, Ma, I want him to take me to that fair.” She still spoke in Punjabi at home; English had not yet overtaken her.

  “That fair?” Kishen said. She smoothed the girl’s hair and looked at Ram with an expression that revealed she did not know what Leela meant. “He will take you,” she said, anyway.

  “I want him to take me and buy for me everything that you did not buy for me, Ma. That’s what I mean.”

  “He will, Leelu,” Kishen said.

  “Do you know which fair, Ma?” Leela whined. When her mother did not answer, she insisted, “Do you know which fair?”

  “Leela,” her father said.

  She was quiet for a moment, then looked at Ram. She said more sweetly, “The fair that Ram Chacha also went to, a long time ago, before everybody got mad at each other. When Jeetu Veer-ji brought me that balloon.”

  “Ah,” said Ram gently. “I will take you to that fair. Next time it comes, we will go.”

  The night sounds of the desert grew louder. “I must go and check the field,” Jivan said. They had irrigated that afternoon, and there had been a breach in a farm ditch.

  “I will go,” Ram said. But no one moved.

  “How old will I be when Jeetu Veer-ji comes home? Just a little older, right? Just a little older, Ma?” The girl had moved off her mother’s lap and onto the thin arm of the chair.

  “Oh, not so much older,” said Karak lightly. “You will still have your teeth, they will not have fallen out.”

  “My teeth!” The girl made a face. Rosa laughed; she could understand enough Punjabi now, and the girl’s expression was funny.

  “You will still have your hair,” Karak said.

  Leela grabbed her hair. “I don’t want to lose my hair!” she said.

  “But probably your arm will have fallen off. Yes, certainly,” said Karak, “now that I think of it, you will be so old by then, your arm will fall off. The right one first. You use it more.”

  Leela giggled and held her right arm. Kishen coaxed her off the chair and took her inside to sleep.

  Jivan said, to no one, “I feel most for my brother.”

  “He made his decision, bhai-ji,” Karak said.

  “I feel I was responsible. I was with him that day,” Ram said.

  “But he had already made up his mind,” Jivan said. “No, the fault lies with me. I wanted him to study, to go to university, but he refused.” Jivan rubbed his face. “He is very intelligent. He came to this country and did not find enough to interest him. That is no one’s fault but mine.”

  Karak yawned, rose, and announced that he was going to bed.

  Jivan remained sitting in the glow of the kerosene lamps late into the night. Ram stayed with him. They sat in silence, and Ram noted that Jivan seemed a much older man.

  THEY ALL FILLED IN for Amarjeet’s absence. Ram took charge of feeding the mare, milking the cow, and helped Jivan bale the alfalfa. Karak took up Amarjeet’s errands in town. Ram helped Kishen with the cooking, hauling water for the laundry. On any morning, Leela might ask, “Isn’t the war finished yet? I miss Jeetu Veer-ji.” When her father told her no, it was not yet over, she would say, “Please don’t forget to tell me when it’s done. Okay, Abba? Please don’t forget.”

  Sometimes Jivan would say, “If that silly boy were here, he could nurse the horse. I would not have to ask the veterinarian to come.” When an extra man was hired for the harvest, Karak remarked, “That is one more man that we would not have had to pay.” Or �
�When Amarjeet comes back, I will tell him what a shabby job he did with fixing these reins.” But no one said anything when Amarjeet’s wages came by mail. Jivan would silently open the envelope, look gravely at the amount on the check, and take it into the bedroom. Ram did not know if he cashed them or not.

  One morning, Jivan was clearing silt from the area near the headgate. Ram joined him with another shovel. They worked quietly. The morning was still cool, and Kishen’s breakfast had been heavy and delicious.

  “It is good that you have come,” Jivan said.

  “The silt is too much today, perhaps we waited too long,” Ram said.

  “It is good that you have come to stay with us,” Jivan said.

  Ram hesitated. “More than three years have passed, bhai-ji.”

  “You have been a great help.”

  “If I must be in America, I am content to be here,” Ram said.

  Jivan did not look up from his work. He was struggling through a heavy section of silt. He seemed oddly lonely, even though surrounded by his family and all that he had built. Ram shifted position and stood near him. They pushed their shovels in and lifted, together.

  20

  Camp Lewis, Washington

  1 October 1917

  My esteemed Jivan Chacha-ji:

  We arrived at Camp Lewis a few days ago. First thing I did after arrival was to send off a detailed letter to Father telling him the situation. I told the truth, that you are furious with me for joining up with the U.S. Army, that you are completely against the decision. If I have overstepped my limits, please accept my pardon. I have done only as I thought correct in telling him the truth.

  After fulfilling that duty to Father, I am now writing this letter to you. There are boys here from all over the country, but especially from California and Oregon and Washington. We sleep in large cabins and eat all together. There are many boys from the Imperial Valley with me here, and as you know from my send-off, we have a good number from Fredonia. Of course, Harry is with me but there is also Everett Pike from El Centro, and Albert Nuñez and Sam Pinkerton, who were at the Fredonia High School with me. Others seem familiar, but I do not know their names. In this strange place they do not know whether to talk with us as friends or not. During our student days, if our eyes met by accident in the school building, we would have looked away from each other. But here it is different. We are surrounded by others we don’t know, and it is the Imperial Valley group with whom I have most in common. Because of the Hindu-German trial, I feel some of them don’t trust me. Of course, I do not blame them at all.